Core Faculty and Staff

Faculty

Valentine M. Villa, PhDProfessor and DirectorDr. Villa is a Professor of Social Work and Director of the Applied Gerontology Institute at California State University, Los Angeles. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the UCLA School of Public Health, and Senior Research Scientist with the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. Dr. Villa was the first person in the nation to receive a Ph.D. in Gerontology in 1993. One focus of Dr. Villa's research is assessing the effects that public policies have on the health and economic status of the elderly population. Her work in this area has examined the effects that aging policy developments, i.e., Medicare Reform, Privatizing Social Security, and changes in existing welfare policy, have on minority and low income populations. Her other research focus is in minority aging and health disparities. That work includes comparative analyses of the health, social, and economic status of the Latino, Korean, African American, and non-Hispanic white populations utilizing local as well as national data sets. Dr. Villa has also been funded and conducted primary research which examines the influence that the war experience, veteran identity, and discrimination have on minority veteran’s health status. She has several manuscripts in this area of investigation. Her most recent work examines the health and mental health parallels that exist among veterans of the Vietnam War and the Conflict in Iraq. Dr. Villa is currently conducting primary research in the areas of caregiving and health literacy among the Latino population. Dr. Villa’s primary goal as a scholar is to utilize her teaching, research, and service to build a bridge between the research, policy and practice arenas for the betterment of the health and well- being of diverse populations. Dr. Villa has authored/ co-authored forty publications, including peer reviewed articles, book chapters, and policy briefs.